Friday, May 15, 2026

Sierra Madre Mayor Demands Pasadena School Board President Resign, Threatens Recall Over Alleged Brown Act Violations

Public records release seems to expose possible backroom coordination between four trustees, prompting calls for resignation and possible litigation

The mayor of Sierra Madre, a veteran public school educator, opened public comment at a Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education special meeting Thursday night by demanding that Board President Tina Fredericks resign immediately, warning that she and other community members would mount a recall campaign if she refuses to step down.

Standing before a packed boardroom on May 14, Mayor Kristine “Kris” Lowe — who said she has spent 27 years as a public school educator — accused Fredericks and three fellow trustees of “illegal coordination” that produced a 4-3 vote approving the District’s “Consolidation 2027″ plan before the public engagement process was complete.

She named Trustees Yarma Velázquez, Kim Kenne, and Scott Hardin as the other three members of what she called a conspiring scheme, and alleged the four had violated California Government Code Section 54950 — the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s open-meeting law.

“This is an abuse of public trust and a direct assault on transparent governance,” Lowe told the Board.

Invoking the memory of her late uncle, Albert Lowe, who once held a seat on the same Board, the mayor told the Board it had “brought embarrassment upon this community” and urged Fredericks to “do the right thing for once.”

The recall threat did not arrive in a vacuum. It was anchored in a rising stack of emails and text messages released over the past several days under California Public Records Act requests — a documentary record that the next speaker, Pasadena Unified School District parent Sara Poggi, said she had read in its entirety. Her account, delivered in measured, almost forensic detail, set the stage for an evening in which one speaker after another accused the four-member board majority of conducting the public’s business in private.

According to Poggi, Fredericks initiated backroom discussions with a Northern California education consulting firm in November. Poggi said the Board President then invited Velázquez and Hardin to join the conversations, and that both agreed. During that period, Poggi said, Fredericks drafted a consolidation framework she titled “Consolidation 2027″ — a document that, despite the public records request, has yet to be produced — and sent the consulting firm a list of 29 questions that “all pointed to the goal of consolidation.”

The sequence Poggi described next is the heart of the controversy. After Trustee Velázquez introduced Resolution 2852, which the Board passed, Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco was directed to hire an independent consultant to lead the School Consolidation Advisory Committee.

On Dec. 1, Poggi told the Board, Blanco — apparently unaware of the prior contacts — reached out to Total School Solutions. A top executive then allegedly emailed Fredericks, Hardin, and Velázquez and told them that Blanco had called Total School Solutions consultant Joseph Pandolfo to discuss hiring him to lead the School Consolidation Advisory Committee, according to Poggi.

Fredericks then reportedly wrote she would keep her involvement and that of Velázquez and Harden “secret from Dr. Blanco,” Poggi alleged.

The Board subsequently voted to pay Total School Solutions nearly a quarter of a million dollars to run a process Blanco believed to be independent — but which, according to Poggi, “clearly was not.” She told trustees the document production allegedly contained evidence of “daisy chain and spoke-and-wheel communications,” two patterns of serial private contact that some California courts have said are Brown Act violations.

Poggi then laid out the legal landscape she said the Board now faces: possible civil litigation, complaints to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and complaints to city attorneys and county district attorneys.

“At this point in time, Tina, Scott, Yarma, and Kim should resign their positions,” she said, “because they have demonstrated to the PUSD community that they cannot or will not lead in good faith.”

The calls for resignation and warnings of legal action recurred among nearly all nine speakers who addressed the Board in person.

Francesca Mariani, speaking on behalf of a group of families connected to Blair, said a genuine community process “does not begin with school closure scenarios and then ask the public to react.” Mariani outlined concrete proposals for what she described as authentic engagement, including “collaborative community and district led town hall sessions” and the “clear public sharing of enrollment demographics, facility conditions, and financial data” with advisory groups that treat community stakeholders “as true participants in the process, not simply as an audience reacting after decisions have already been shaped.”

Emma Green, a parent of a student at Thurgood Marshall Secondary School, said the Board had hand-picked a committee, posed it specific questions, received clear answers — and was now, in her view, ignoring those answers entirely.

“It feels as though four individuals have decided they know better than the very committee and communities that they represent,” Green said.

Parent Lisa Kroese told trustees that the independent advisory committee the Board itself appointed had “advised against consolidations resoundingly,” and accused Fredericks of removing School Consolidation Advisory Committee updates from regular Board meeting agendas.

Kroese pressed the Board on what she said were absent procedural safeguards — asking whether a competitive bidding process would have surfaced a different consultant had Blanco been informed of the prior contacts, and noting that meetings “should have included public comment” and been “live streamed” on the District’s website. She also charged that the Board had been “sending a list of schools that developers want,” a remark that drew audible reaction from the audience.

“First, you lied to us,” Kroese said, “and now you’re lying to yourselves.”

A sixth speaker, addressing the Board immediately after Kroese, warned that public anger over the alleged coordination was no longer confined to the parents who attend every meeting.

“The broader Pasadena community is paying attention now,” the speaker said. “People across this district are reading the reports, watching what is happening and questioning whether this board acted honestly and legally throughout the process.”

The speaker called for the resignation of all four trustees and said that if they refused to step down voluntarily, the community should pursue “every lawful avenue available to hold them accountable, including recall efforts, complaints to oversighted agencies and continued public scrutiny.”

Addressing the Board directly, the speaker added: “You work for the public, not for consultants, not for political allies, not for predetermined agendas.”

The evening’s most pointed moral indictment came from a student. A Thurgood Marshall Secondary School student who identified himself as Lando Marchese told the Board that the reports of possible Brown Act violations were teaching students “a lesson that I don’t think the district wants us to learn.” Adults, he said, ask young people to believe in public service and civic responsibility “while decisions affecting our schools may have been discussed behind closed doors.”

Parent Dawn Denison closed public comment with a parallel: Pasadena Unified School District students sign a code of conduct each year promising not to lie, plagiarize, or cheat.

“I know you guys have to sign a code of conduct, too,” she said. “But I also know you all violated it.”

Denison accused the Board majority of “diabolical schemes” and a “2027 resolution plan” shaped by what she called a “hive mind of Marshall.” She told the Board she now considers organizing a recall her “new job,” and offered her own credentials as a community fundraiser, noting that she had been part of an annual fund at Sierra Madre Elementary — a Title I school — where she hoped to raise more than $1 million over five years.

Neither Fredericks nor Trustees Velázquez, Kenne, or Hardin responded to the public comments during the portion of the meeting open to the public. Pasadena Now reached out to school board members, but none has responded.

The Board, after acknowledging nine in-person speakers and emailed comments that will become part of the permanent record, moved into recess at the close of public comment.

Lowe, before stepping away from the microphone, urged the Board not to deflect blame downward. “Please do not blame your PUSD administration nor your superintendent, Dr. Blanco,” she said. “This is solely up to you to take accountability.”